Old Fears are the Hardest to Bear
by Undomiel5
Summary: Old fears are the hardest to bear: deep and ingrained they have a hold on us that is hard to shake off. Even harder, sometimes, is having to talk about those fears, even to the ones you love. Of this, FBI Agent Asha Hunter is reminded whilst on a hunt with her husband Ian Edgerton.


Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs, its particular characters, or the plots of its episodes. All I own are the plots of my specific stories and a few original characters.

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The sound of a key-card unlocking their hotel room door made Asha start and look up from her seat on the floor. She was sitting near the back of the room next to the bed furthest from the door. Around her were spread the pieces of her dissembled sniper rifle, a Remington 700 PSS, and a variety of cleaning equipment. She expected that it was just Ian Edgerton, her husband and fellow FBI sniper, returning, but, tired and lost in thought, had been startled by the unexpected noise.

The door opened on surprisingly silent hinges and shut just as quietly with Ian controlling its close. Asha relaxed as soon as she saw that it was only her husband as expected.

"Hawkins is settled in holding for the night, an entirely too comfortable cell for the likes of him. They'll deal with getting him back to Billings themselves." Ian said as a greeting, after the door was closed and all the locks flipped on. "The local field office has a charter flight heading back to DC in the morning. I was told that there's room for us."

Asha looked back up from her work quickly, her eyes tracking him as he moved over to the far bed, removed his boots, and stretched out full length with his fingers interlaced behind his head. "What time?" She asked.

"6:00am," he replied.

She gave a distracted nod, her attention once again on her rifle. She could feel his eyes on her, watching, studying. Normally it would not have bothered her, but considering _the_ incident on the trail early that morning, she was pretty sure she knew what he was thinking about, and it was all she could do not to twitch or shift like his gaze bothered her. _The_ incident had been just plain embarrassing and had risked putting them both in danger. Asha knew that her husband would not have just forgotten about it and would ask her about it eventually. Yet, she had hoped _eventually_ was a while longer down the road.

Asha replaced the cap on a bottle of oil that she had been using and set it back down on the floor. After spending another fifteen minutes looking over every centimeter of her rifle and scope one more time, she started to put it back together carefully. Her rifle performing correctly could mean the difference between life and death for her teammates on HRT and the hostages they tried to save; she took meticulous care of her rifle as she could not afford to have it fail her at a critical moment.

As she returned her rifle to its padded carrying case and zipped up the bag, she could feel the protestations of her legs that she had been trying to ignore for minutes. She had been sitting cross-legged for over half-an-hour, and her calves and feet were being plagued violently by pins-and-needles. She winced and shifted to stretch her feet out in front of her.

When the expected question came from Ian, she started violently, as his voice broke through the quiet of the room. "You want to tell me what happened on the trail this morning?" His voice was calm, cool, not annoyed or angry. Ian was concerned about his wife and growing more concerned as the minutes went by. She had been twitchy ever since he had returned, even though she had been trying to hide it, and then she had nearly jumped out of her skin when he had spoken. He wanted some answers, wanted to know what was troubling her.

 _Not really._ However, Asha knew she owed him an explanation. She had screwed up badly, freezing in the midst of the hunt. If the circumstances had been different, she could have gotten them both killed. Ian was not only her partner on this case but also, more significantly, her husband and most trusted friend. She owed him an explanation.

The two snipers had been tracking Charles Hawkins, a fugitive wanted for shooting an FBI agent, through the southernmost portion of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming for days. (Asha had been pulled from her duties with Hostage Rescue Team to accompany Ian due to her great familiarity with the region in and around the Grand Tetons.) Asha and Ian had gotten close to Hawkins that morning, less than an hour behind him, when she had nearly stepped on a garter snake, a nonvenomous and perfectly harmless little snake. But as surprised as she was, that snake's coloring had been just close enough to the timber rattlesnake to rattle her. She had frozen. Only a low, sharp call from her husband further up the trail had startled her out of her fright enough for her to keep going.

Asha climbed slowly to her feet as she thought about her reply. Wincing again as she put her full weight on her still half-asleep feet, she steadied herself with one hand on the dresser. Her eyes skittered around the room, across her husband who was waiting patiently for her answer. Embarrassment (almost shame) kept her from meeting his eyes: it seemed so stupid, so silly to her that she had frozen because of a snake. _I am an FBI agent, for goodness sake. I can keep my cool with a gun pointed in my face, but I freeze at the sight of a snake._

"What did you see?" She finally asked. He had been a good ten to fifteen feet ahead of her on the trail when it happened. She was not sure what he had seen and what he had not, and Asha was not a fan of having to repeat unnecessary information.

Ian's brow furrowed, puzzled at the unexpected question. "Your footsteps stopped suddenly. It almost sounded like you had stumbled. When I turned back, you were just standing there starring at something on the ground. You didn't respond when I called your name twice. I had started back towards you, when I finally got your attention."

Asha started to pace slowly up and down the small hotel room, half for the distraction, half for getting the pins-and-needles the rest of the way out of her legs. "I almost stepped on a snake. It . . . startled me."

"What kind of snake?" Ian asked, an eyebrow starting to make its way up toward his hairline. He knew there were no venomous snakes endemic in the Grand Tetons. However, that did not mean one could not have made its way into the Park from the surrounding areas.

Asha finally stopped pacing, coming to a halt in front of the bed where Ian was reclining. "A garter snake," she replied, a sheepish look on her face.

"A garter snake?!" He exclaimed in surprised. To Asha he looked like he was trying not to laugh.

She wrapped her arms around her torso, curling her shoulders in defensively. Two splotches of color darkened the copper skin over her cheekbones. "Yes, a garter snake!" Her tone was as defensive as her posture.

Decades of work behind a scope had sharpened his keen senses, but it didn't take much for Ian to see how embarrassed she was. He had known her for over two-and-a-half years, had seen her moving confidently in the woods, even around snakes, but he had never seen her freeze before like she had that morning. There was something else, something more at the heart of the issue.

"Garter snakes are harmless. You know that." His voice was calm, controlled, and as close to soothing as Ian could get.

Unfortunately that wasn't quite that best thing for him to say. "I know that!" Her voice rose at the end, full of exasperation. "I wasn't born yesterday."

"I never insinuated you were." Now Ian was just genuinely puzzled, wondering what had so badly rattled his usually even-tempered and adaptable wife. "There's nothing wrong with being afraid of snakes."

"I'm not afraid of snakes." She snapped. "It surprised me. I almost stepped on it."

Ian, growing even more puzzled and concerned by the minute, straightened up from where he had been leaning against the headboard and moved so he could get up if needed. "Really, then why did you freeze?" His voice was probing, not antagonistic.

Asha's brief display of temper disappeared as quickly as it appeared. She seemed to almost deflate, as she curled further into herself. Her voice dropped. "I thought it was a rattler," she explained.

"A rattlesnake?"

Asha nodded and moved around the end of the bed into the light of the lamp standing on the table between the two beds. Balancing on one foot, she pulled off her right sock while steadying herself with a hand on the arm Ian had automatically extended. Twisting around to prop her right leg up on the bed, she pointed to a spot on the side of her lower leg just above where a pair of hiking or combat boots would reach: clearly visible against her copper skin were two white puncture wounds, long scarred over, the only visible remains of an old snakebite.

"I was 14," Asha said in a quiet voice, her eyes distant as she remembered this incident long past, "and living with my aunt and uncle after the death of my parents. My uncle had taken me out hunting one day. I didn't see the timber rattlesnake until it was too late to get out of the way or for my uncle to shoot it. It bit me right above the top of my boot. I was small for my age, so the poison had a worse effect on me. We were too far from his truck for my uncle to carry me so he had to half-support me and half-prod me along by sheer force of will to get me to safety in time. I nearly didn't make it, and it was a long time before I recovered, before I could walk on that leg …. I'm not afraid of most snakes: I couldn't do my job if I was. I had a copperhead crawl over my legs once, and I never flinched. But, ever since that day, I haven't been able to stand the sight of a rattlesnake; I almost always freeze. I can't help it. I remember, and I..." She shuddered at the memory and fell silent. She let go of her husband's arm and, balancing on one foot for a moment, pulled her sock back on.

"Come here," Ian said. Taking her hand, he tugged her down gently onto the bed and then twisted so he could pull her into his arms. For a moment, her body was stiff, but then she relaxed, curling into his chest and tucking her head down under his chin.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly after several minutes had passed, so quietly that Ian wouldn't have heard her speak if she hadn't been so close to him.

"For what?"

"Freezing out on the trail, putting us both in danger, losing my cool here and snapping at you. Rattlesnakes freak me out. Regardless, I shouldn't have gotten upset with you."

"You're forgiven." Ian pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. "The mind has a way of playing tricks on us. Sometimes there isn't time to get a tight grip on your fears before they get a tight grip on you."

"I hate snakes," she mumbled. Her breathing rhythm was back to being regular and slow. Finally calm, the long, exhausting day was catching up with her. Safe and warm in Ian's arms, she was close to drifting off.

"Some snakes have their uses," Ian replied, "but anyone who _likes_ snakes has a screw loose in my opinion."

Asha gave a faint chuckle but didn't respond verbally.

After another few minutes had passed, Ian loosened his grip, "Why don't you lie down? You'll sleep better in an actual bed. Morning is going to come soon enough, and you need some sleep."

"Comfy here," Asha mumbled back, half-asleep, "You give nice hugs."

Ian smiled softly, touched by her words. Because of his job and how often he was away from civilized society for weeks on end, he had few acquaintances and even fewer friends. Many people who knew him only saw the reputation of the big, bad, cold-hearted sniper that had built up around him. Even Don Epps' unit in LA had trouble seeing past the mask, past his reputation. Asha knew him well enough, however, to know that there was a caring man, even gentle at times, buried deep inside, behind the masks, behind the reputation that a decades of working a difficult and dangerous job had helped create.

He pressed another kiss to her head. "I love you, Asha," he said, "but you are not using me as a pillow all night."

Giving a good-natured, tired grumble, she finally sat up slowly, rubbing at her eyes with one hand, a gesture that made her look years younger than she really was at 35.

Ian gestured toward the other bed, "Go to bed. I'll be along soon."

Asha settled down on top of the covers. In mid-July, it was not cool enough to need them for warmth, and she was too tired to bother getting under them. By the time Ian finished switching all the lights in the room off, she was already asleep.


End file.
